


The Favor

by MezMoriah



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 10:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MezMoriah/pseuds/MezMoriah
Summary: It's been a while since I've written any fanfiction for anything, but it's good to be writing again! I wrote this about a month ago for my best friend who had just lost her own mother in hopes of cheering her up a little. Dante and Lady is her OTP for life (and also mine for DMC), so I wanted to write something sweet and even relevant for her.(Note: I also posted this on my Dante RP blog on Tumblr so if you follow me there, you may have read this.)





	The Favor

Another dud. Dante growled as he tossed the phone back on the hook. No password again. Third one today and it was just after noon. He swore someone was out there handing people his number as a damn joke. The half devil had opened up his demon hunting business about a month ago, but the jobs came in a slow trickle. The rest had been clean up from Temen-Ni-Gru and the demons who stuck around after that episode. Charity work.

“Shit,” he grumbled to himself as he propped his feet up on his desk and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes to the hum of the ceiling fan above him. At least the place was back in one piece. It had taken time and plenty of money, but he had his place again. He no longer had to stay in ratty old hotels while he had the building remodeled and put back together. He didn’t even want to think about how he got such a good deal on that…

The growl of a motor approaching the shop popped one eye open. The other when the doors creaked open. He lifted his head to see who graced him with their presence. Short shorts, white button-down shirt, and armed to the teeth. Thus, the devil hunter recognized the woman before she removed her helmet and shook out her short, dark locks.

“Well, look who decided to pay me a visit.” Dante grinned as he shifted his boots back to the floor and stood. “I knew you couldn’t stay away from me, Lady.”

He could hear her eye roll as she placed her hand on her hip, helmet held between her waist and arm. “This is why I don’t come around. You get stupid ideas it that big head of yours.”

Dante waved her off. “Yeah, yeah.” He positioned himself in front of her. “But, since you’re here, why don’t we go up to my roo-”

Cold metal against his chest halted his words, but couldn’t quell his chuckle. “Keep talking and I’ll pump you full of lead, asshole.” Dante opened his mouth to test her, but the click of the hammer closed it again. Not to mention the flash in her bi-color eyes. “I came here because I need to ask you a favor.”

A snowy eyebrow raised in question. The corners of his smirk twitched and fell. In all the year and some odd months he’d known Lady, she had never asked him for a favor. Not outright. He assumed it was because he was still in debt for destroying her bike at the tower. But now, even as he studied her face, trying to read it for an answer to this odd request, he came up short. What had happened? Was she sick? Dying? What would put her in a position to possibly ask him for help, to potentially owe him a favor in return (he wasn’t holding his breath for the latter, though)?

A shrug of the shoulder. “Depends on what it is. Need me to help ya hide a body or somethin’?”

“No, stupid.” Lady took note of his eye roll, the way he tensed and looked past her, tuning out at the name calling. She sighed and lowered her gun. “Sorry. But seriously.”

There. He saw a flash of something in her face. A sadness he had only seen there one other time. At Temen-Ni-Gru after their fight. Past the rage and disappointment in herself and stubbornness, he had seen a sadness in her eyes. The sadness only someone who had lost a loved one—a loving parent no less—could experience. The hurt of feeling like they had failed them. He had seen it reflected in his own eyes for over a decade. 

And now he saw it again. Bi color eyes shifted to the corners, refusing to meet his gaze. Her light lips were pressed together, firmly and stubbornly closed until she knew she could speak without her voice cracking. She balled her hands at her side, then unclenched them.

“I need you to take a job for me,” she said as she met his gaze. All business again. She built her walls quick. “I forgot I have something to do tomorrow, but I promised to check out some possible demonic activity at the south side of town.”

He wanted to say no. He hadn’t really had a good day off in a week, after all, whether he dealt with actual clients and jobs or devils he found on his own. He had hoped to spend the day relaxing. Napping and eating pizza. Maybe a trip to Bullseye Bar (newly remodeled) for a drink or two if he was so inclined. But, he couldn’t shake that expression from his mind. Damn, why was he a sucker for a pretty girl in distress?

Dante sighed and brushed his fingers through white locks. “Alright, alright. Fine. But, I get the full pay with no nagging about paying for your bike.” He paused as he debated how far he could take this. “And dinner. And sex?”

Her cheeks lit up like a Christmas light and her fingers twitched for her gun again. But, when she spoke, she surprised him with a level tone: “Yes to the pay and the dinner, no to the sex. Pervert. Can’t you think of anything other than sex and pizza?”

“Deal.” Victorious, he sauntered back over to his desk, leaving Lady in the middle of the room as she dug the details of the job out of her bag. “So what’s so important that you gotta pawn your job off on me? I was convinced you didn’t sleep you were so adamant about killing demons. It’ll break my heart if you got yourself a hot date.”

“None of your business,” she snapped a little too quick. Dante raised his eyebrow again and Lady waved him off with a scoff. She crossed the room, boots clomping louder than usual on the wood floor in her irritation, and slammed the handwritten pages on his desk. “I never took you for the nosy type, Dante.”

Dante slid the pages toward him and scanned them. She had written everything down for him: times, places, the client’s name, details of the job. Organized as always. He should really take a page from her book if he hoped to be successful in this business. He kept his office in an organized chaos. He knew where everything was, but good luck to anyone else trying to find anything specific. 

Setting the papers down, he lifted the phone and used it as a paper weight. “I dunno. I’m just genuinely curious.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers as he leaned back in his chair. “You’re tense. Quicker to anger than usual. Something bothering you? You’re not overworked, are ya?”

“Please. You’re the lazy one here, not me.” She had him there. To his surprise, Lady leaned against his desk instead of fleeing. She had a habit of telling him to mind his own damn business and stomping off, only to disappear for another few weeks when he pissed her off. Minutes passed where neither said anything, Dante’s gaze glued to her back. He noted the fine white scars along the back of her forearms. Not from cutting, judging by the random patterns, sizes, and depths. From fighting. 

Finally, Lady glanced over her shoulder, but only a second of it was spared on Dante. Instead, her gaze chose the double doors where the early afternoon light filtered into the office. “Tomorrow’s Mom’s birthday.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Though he couldn’t see her hands, she could tell she was worrying the bottom of her shirt. A nervous habit he had caught her in more than once. “I wanted to go to her grave.”

Dante could see a shimmer of tears in the corner of her red eye as she fingered the ruby-colored drop at her throat. He leaned back as she chewed her lower lip and her eyes twitched toward him, waiting for him to speak. 

He kept silent at first. He knew how pointless and frail words could sound on these matters. As a child, he remembered all the poor dears, so sorry for your losses, and, his personal favorite, the she’s in a better place nows that only agitated him. He didn’t want to hear any of that. As a mere eight-year-old, he wanted comfort, not words from people who most likely could not understand. And, considering they came from the various foster parents only looking for a check in the mail or the head of some orphanage that only cared about the quiet, well-behaved children, he never felt the consoling words came from mouths that truly gave a shit about him or what he was going through. Even over a decade after that horrific day, the hybrid still grieved the loss of his mother and, more recently, that of his brother. He would never say his grief didn’t hurt, that the memories of his family didn’t form a lump in his throat. But, Lady’s grief was brand new. Not much over a year old, if he remembered right. She hid it better than a pirate hid his cache of gold before his death, but he knew she felt it everyday. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.

“Yeah…Yeah, I get it,” he finally said. He was probably the only person in her life that could say that and mean it. Truly mean it. He shifted his gaze to the photo of his mother on his desk, then back to her. Lady had turned her full attention to him, her body awkwardly twisted at the waist and her palm resting on the wood. He could see the tear trails on her cheeks and new, unshed tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know your mom, but she’d be proud of you. You’re a strong, badass woman, and I don’t know what kind of parent wouldn’t be proud of that.”

Lady laughed, the bitterness obvious in the short, clipped note. “I doubt my father would approve of who I’ve become. I’m fairly sure he aimed to kill me in that damn tower. I think it’s safe to assume he wanted dead, not badass.”

“Well, your dad hardly counts as a good father figure,” Dante pointed out, a small smile of his own beginning to light his features, “so his opinion is moot. No offense.”

“None taken,” Lady snorted. She pushed herself off the desk and swiped at her face with her forearm. She breathed out a long, shuddering sigh before moving to pick up her helmet. “I should get going. I’m sure you’ve got plans tonight.”

“Wait.” The word poured out of his mouth and his hand raised to stop her before he realized he had done it. Lady paused, helmet halfway to her head, her dark eyebrow raised as she waited for him to finish. Well, the worst she could do is say no.

“You wanna stay here tonight?” he asked as he stood up from his desk. Seeing her face darken, he quickly added, “Not in a sexual way. To just hang out. Watch dumb movies and order in or something. Would beat sittin’ home alone all night.”

Lady tapped her fingers on top of her helmet. Her bi-color eyes flicked from him to the door, as if gauging which offer seemed more appealing: hanging out with a man who did nothing but annoy her or to go home and sulk around her flat until she finally fell asleep. Or that’s what he assumed she did when she wasn’t demon hunting. That and other more colorful fantasies.

“Alright, fine.” She set her helmet on the corner of his desk. Hand on her hip, she prodded him in the chest. She tried to look menacing, but Dante could see the smile in her eyes. “But no pizza. And I want to watch Disney movies. Disney princess movies. Got it?”

The half demon chuckled and ruffled her hair. “Deal.”


End file.
